At the beginning of women's magazines, it was all about how to get women attracted to products, how to use them and how to please their men. So it was articles that were written for girls and women that were under men’s ”control”. That was why all the girls in those magazines should be thin, white, and beautiful. Advertisers managed the magazine's editorial staff, so the women's magazine got changed and controlled by the ads they contained. Therefore the announcement included certain rules and policies (Steinem, 1994, s. 176).
The Afro-American author Toni Morrison was interviewed in 1990. She got asked, ”When are you going to write books that are not about race”. This question somehow emphasized that people think that her work is lower class, not relevant or important. The reason why people have this opinion about her work is that she chooses black people as her main characters and is more centered instead of white people. She also chose not to demean the blackness through the white characters and their point of view. This interview really showed people that how blackness and black people are the ”others” in society and white people are seen as the main and normal people. If we think about this in other contexts in relation to the media, it is often white people who are centered. Not only centered but seen as the norm where black is more different in a negative way. In white supremacy, the white people are the good, trusty, and worth compared to black people. Therefore most people think or have the feeling that whites can dominate over black people. People mostly watch or see things as “how is this important for me” which is normal. It is normal that we as individuals watch and see stuff with our egos. The reason why white centering is a problem is that it switches to “how is this important or has anything to do with white people”. The races get separated and it is not about the individual anymore but about them and us. Therefore black people are seen as less relevant in things like tv-shows, magazines, etc and this is the reason why works get culturally appropriated. It is because the creators don’t want others to think that their works are not mainstream, irrelevant, or lower class. (Saad, 2020, s. 134-136)
Layla F. Saad lists some points where the white centering shows up. Besides the overrepresentations of white people in tv-shows, books, and movies, it also shows up in work possessions in relation to leadership and success. Another point is that the European beauty standards like having blue eyes, straight and light-colored hair, white/lighter skin, and smaller noses are more valuable for them than other beauties. As I wrote earlier the magazines usually focus’ on European models. Girls and woman that has blonde hair and light skin get to be on the magazine covers mostly (Saad, 2020, s. 137-138). Since models like Tyra Banks and Naomi Campbell stood up against this discrimination, the industry has included girls and women with darker skin and other nationalities in magazines. The problem is as soon as a black woman gets included the white centering shows up or the black woman gets represented in a different way than if she was white.
Figure 1 (Vogue, 1992)
On this magazine cover of Vogue in 1992, we can see the black woman is placed at the corner where the woman at the center is white and has blonde hair. There are several women on this cover therefore the black woman is not the only one placed at the corner, but the reason why I chose this example is to visualize what I meant. Also, these types of covers are often like this, where the black woman’s skin is lightened by photoshop, she is usually placed at the back or the corner and her body is covered.
Figure 2 (Vogue)
Here is another example of white centering. On the first cover, the famous actress Deepika Padukone is placed not in the middle but next to Scarlett Johansson. It is very obvious that they are pushed away from the center. This can also be seen by the way Adesua Etomi is placed behind Vanessa Kirby. Her hair also covers up a part of Etomis face. If we look at Etomis's skin closely, the color of her concealer is much lighter than it should be. So they have in a way used make-up so her skin looks lighter. Also with the lightning, flash, or photoshop, they could have played with her skin color a lot. Another question is why would they not use her natural hair. We see that all of them have their hair up despite one and that they all have hair wreaths. However, her hair looks more hidden than most of the women on the cover. (Mody, 2020, s. PINKVILLA).
I want to finish this off by mentioning Rihanna who is one of the biggest names when it comes to stopping cultural appropriations and how a black woman gets represented in media. She herself stands up against it, which we can see on the cover of UK Vogue 2020. She was the first one in history that wear a durag on a magazine cover (Fetto, 2020). With this, we can say that black culture in media develops and gets respected and accepted. There should be more black women and men being centered wearing their cultural clothing without being separated from the “normal”.
Bibliography
Fetto, F. (30. March 2020). Fashion . Hentet fra Vogue : https://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/article/rihanna-first-durag-british-vogue-cover
Mody, P. (17. June 2020). Celebrity Style. Hentet fra PINKVILLA: https://www.pinkvilla.com/fashion/celebrity-style/deepika-padukone-used-prop-magazine-cover-diet-prada-scrutinises-racist-behaviour-vogue-541929
Saad, L. F. (2020). You and white centering . I L. F. Saad, Me and white supremacy (s. 134-140). London: Quercus Editions Ltd.
Steinem, G. (1994). Sex, Lies and Advertising. Moving beyond words , s. 170-178.